Like many many millions of nerds I have been thoroughly enjoying Marvel’s new TV shows, WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. They are very welcome additions to the ‘Superhero TV Show’ genre, a genre that is admittedly saturated with entries. Out of this plethora of choice, WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier stand out.

Inferring the correlation between X and Y, or writing an article in a magazine. Between these two tasks, which one can only be done by a human, and which can be done by a machine? It would seem like the answer is fairly straightforward isn’t it? Inferring a correlation between two variables is math. Of course a human could do it. But that would be tedious and time consuming. It would be easier to just let the machine do that, because it can.

Social media censorship has been a hot topic as of late. Politicians have been banned by social media platforms and whole websites being de-platformed by their hosting providers . The power that a select few internet companies possess has taken center stage in our social discourse. Do these companies have too much unfettered power? Should they have the unilateral authority to de-platform individuals from their communities? Should they be more heavily regulated?

Lately I have been trying to stay on top of the news more. Despite 2020 being “the year everyone stayed put” a lot still happened. And I have been frankly embarrassed at myself for not being able to keep up more with what’s going on in the world. I would read the occasional headline on the South China Morning Post or browse through Reddit’s top page. But that has only produced an opinion that is wide but not deep, and a far call from being fully informed.